A modern sans-serif design, Optima at first looks a little like a traditional sans-serif. However, its strokes are delicately tapered and carry residual serifs. In many ways, Optima's design follows humanist lines, but its italic variant is merely an oblique, a slanted roman.
Like Palatino, another Zapf creation, Optima is widely admired and widely pirated.
In the Bitstream font collection, Optima is called Zapf Humanist.